Connect Staff
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The system for hotels to manage their housekeeping tasks, workflows, and ongoing maintenance. By tracking this type of information they’re able to have a centralized location of data where they can make critical business and staffing decisions.
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UX and Design. I conducted on-site research with hotel staff. Conceptualized, created, and designed end-to-end workflow and worked with the development team to build and launch the product.
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Create a mobile app and web control system that allows hotel staff to track and manage tasks and internal workflows.
My challenge was that hotels were using post-it notes, radios and had decentralized information but needed to make critical business decisions using incomplete information.
I began by working with hotels worldwide to understand their workflow. How did they share information, who looked at it, and where did it all go? No solutions existed that included all the details. Basic task tracking wouldn't work because it needed to have more depth. I standardized a format that could outline ongoing tasks and structured maintenance items used repeatedly and consistently.
One of the most critical steps that occurred was buy-in from the team. I put together a quick presentation to bring everyone up-to-speed on the project, ideas, and settling on crucial terminology.
The key differentiator is that one size does not fit all. The goal was that an economy brand could leverage the same system as an upscale hotel and only change a few configuration pieces. I worked with our team to map out the overall functionality we would embrace for a minimum viable product [MVP] release. I focused first on the setup and management sections that would define the underlying controls. They would need to live within the context of an existing website, but the interface and setup were open.
Sketches and wireframes ultimately led to the task configuration, becoming the north star for the overall functionality.
Sketches led to wireframes with ideas around the type of UI for task management and configuration. I created numerous basic low-fidelity layouts that outlined ideas.
Alternate view of a task layout concept.
Refined revisions and design system elements started building the base for numerous sections and pages.
The initial versions used Invision to create clickable prototypes. I tested the earliest versions against documented requirements and then hotel staff stakeholders.
With the management side wrapping up, it was time to work on the iOS and Android mobile apps. I took my experience working in hotels to understand the necessities of working with gloves, the need to leverage multiple languages, and the inherent loss of many "fine controls" such as long presses, holds, and swipes.
Sketches of process, actions, and possible UI elements. Illustrating a messaging-like view with control details.
Detail control showing possible actions for a request.
Conceptual property and informational page that illustrates information.
Further sketches led to low-fidelity mockups that included basic controls.
The idea was to get the ideas into a workable state for faster prototyping in Adobe XD.
I made continual iterations with feedback from friendly hotels to refine the mockups to a state acceptable for conceptual testing by leveraging platform standards and a clear content hierarchy.
I ended up with numerous screens to go through the workflow. Along the way, the question was always what's the minimum amount of information I can show on-screen to allow someone to do their job?
As the product has continued to evolve, so has the UI and UX. While still functionally very similar, the app has minimized the type of content seen and removed excess badges and other labels. Deeper functionality and additional secondary views are available behind deeper menus.
Connect Staff has been well-received and well-reviewed. In addition to receiving patents for much of the functionality, it has won several top prizes in the hotel industry, including HotelTechReport.